Comic Katt Williams talks about Woodland Target incident in new HBO stand-up special

Comic Katt Williams, in his new HBO stand-up special, alludes to his myriad legal troubles in 2012, including those stemming from two incidents in the Sacramento region.

Williams acknowledges at the start of his special “Priceless: Afterlife,” debuting at 10 p.m. Saturday on the pay cable channel, that he was “going through some (expletive)” during a time in which “they arrested me five times in five cities in five days.”

Williams was in Sacramento for a stand-up show on Nov. 25, 2012, when he drove a three-wheel motorcycle on a downtown sidewalk, leading to a brief chase by law-enforcement officers. That same day, he struck a Woodland Target employee with his hand in a video-recorded incident that went viral. In the special, Williams says a “white man at the Target” called him names, including a racial epithet, but expresses regret that he struck out.

“I got arrested in a Target – how the (expletive) do you go to jail in an electronics superstore?” Williams asks the crowd at Citizens Bank Arena in Ontario, Calif., where the HBO special, directed by Spike Lee, was recorded in May.

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Williams pleaded no contest to reckless evasion of an officer in the Sacramento incident and was sentenced to community service. His attorney pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery on Williams’ behalf in the Woodland case. Williams was ordered to stay away from the employee and the store and serve a year of informal probation.